


Heimweh

by Queerapika



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Long-Distance Relationship, Loss of Limbs, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 23:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13728072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queerapika/pseuds/Queerapika
Summary: There was a time when blond ghosts would dance at the corner of his vision whenever he moved through crowded streets. There was a time when the loneliness and the worry sedimented as a constant pain inside his bones. Leorio sometimes thinks back to this time if he needs a reminder that the new distance is kinder, one that is measured in miles and longitudes only and that does not bring the turmoil of silence and not knowing.(in which Kurapika needs to be apart from Leorio to be close to him again)





	Heimweh

**Author's Note:**

> this is, like, super old but I realized that I never posted it here despite the fact that it's probably one of my favorite fics i ever wrote. Probably peaked with this, kinda sad to think about it.
> 
> Aaaanyway, ya girl has a twitter now if you wanna yell at me, it's @smallpeeks

_Heimweh (noun, German): the painful yearning to be home again when you are traveling foreign lands._

* * *

 

There was a time when blond ghosts would dance at the corner of his vision whenever he moved through crowded streets. There was a time when the loneliness and the worry sedimented as a constant pain inside his bones. Leorio sometimes thinks back to this time if he needs a reminder that the new distance is kinder, one that is measured in miles and longitudes only and that does not bring the turmoil of silence and not knowing.

Kurapika sends pictures of the places he’s visiting; sometimes they have names, other times they don’t. Leorio sends back words: long, unedited strings of thoughts about his everyday life, as if Kurapika is his diary but instead of starting with ‘dear Kurapika,‘ he always ends with the words ‘I love you‘. Kurapika sparsely writes back. His messages read like poetry; Leorio wants to frame them and hang them up in his office, but he holds back because some things are not meant to share. His favorite is the message that followed after a break of two months. It read:

_I am alive I am well_  
I am dining with the ant queen, they sent their greeting   
(please share it with Gon)  
In the lush jungles of NGL I found a farmer who shares my blood and his three daughters, albeit having eyes the color of rivers, giggle in the language of my people  
He shared his memories with me and I eagerly wrote down old songs and his grandmother’s recipes and rites that I was too young to remember  
We are not dead  
But even after discovering another piece of my culture, I don’t feel any closer to the end of my journey  
(I apologize) (You must be tired of waiting)  
I miss you  
These days I am rarely without company but no one feels like family and no one has your voice, your laughter, no one has your hands The nights are worse because the air is too quiet and I never seem to quite fit the beds  
I start to categorize people and places in whether you’d like them or not   
I hope you are well   
I am still catching up with all the messages that you sent me in the last few weeks even though I told you I will be cut off from the rest of the world but you never seem to listen  
I miss that too

Kurapika’s messages have no goodbye and no hello, as if they are part of a conversation they never stop having and they always contain the promise, no, the _certainty_ that Kurapika will return. That’s why he never stops by even if he’s close. If he comes back, it will be for good. And when the doubts settle in, Leorio plays with his engagement ring to ground himself, even if it sometimes feels like he’s engaged to the distance too.

* * *

 

The dark continent had not treated them kindly; not a single person who set out for the journey came back unscathed, unmarked. Kurapika was able to make peace with his own losses once the cloud of constant pain around him lessened, but the one thing he could not handle was how it changed Leorio. Every cough, every groan from Kurapika let the fear flicker up in his friend’s and partner’s eyes like a wisp. His movements around Kurapika became more careful, every touch held an apology, every kiss sought for confirmation that Kurapika was still there. 

Leorio didn‘t smile when he asked Kurapika to marry him and that was the moment when the Kurta knew he had to go. “Leorio,“ he said, cradling his lover’s head in his lap and mussing through the short black hair. “I love you, but look at us. You treat me like I’m half a ghost and I’m not quite sure what to do with myself now that I have reached the end of my mission. I can no longer work as a Blacklist Hunter and I’m not sure if I wanted to, to be honest, but I don’t know what else to want from life. I always had a goal to achieve and now I need to make my own.”

“I can help you. We can come up with something together.“ 

Kurapika might have considered this option, but for Leorio’s sake he could not accept it. Perhaps if Leorio stopped feeling guilty for the decision he made on Kurapika’s behalf, perhaps if he stopped hurting himself on the new scars that Kurapika wore…

“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear: I am not rejecting you. I know you can make me very happy, but I am asking for you to give me time. I need to be sure that I can make _myself_ happy too. It would be very unfair of me to rely on you all the time.“

* * *

 

Kurapika chose the wood and took the measurements, Leorio whittled and whetted the rings, rubbed them down with all the right oils until they were sleek and smooth. Kurtan customs demanded that they were worn on a string around the neck for the engagement period.

The day when they finished the rings turned out a nice day; Kurapika’s arm hurt only twice and he counted three genuine (if weak) smiles from Leorio.

Good bye followed two days after.

* * *

 

_You will always have a home here, by my side._

Kurapika travels with these words in his pockets. It’s his good luck charm, one that strengthens his resolve. He has no chains anymore. He doesn’t need them.

He travels. He collects. He remembers.

He owns four travel journals, one for each year. They hold the progress he made, the parts of his culture he could reclaim and the worries he didn’t know how to explain to Leorio. They also allow him to keep track on dates.

The several entries of April 4th read: _  
_

_1) Things would be so much easier if I **was** half a ghost, then I could just use my phantom hand to reach into his head and fix him, bring back his joy and his smiles. Instead I just tell him how proud I am of him. I turned 22 today. Killua and Alluka found me and offered to travel with me for a while. Killua understands. Alluka is just happy to meet someone new. I think I’ll accept their offer._

_2) Everyone seems to be settling down. It’s been 3 months now since I parted with Killua and Alluka on Whale Island. I received an invitation to Neon’s wedding, but I’m not sure if I’ll go. Leorio called because it’s my birthday and also because he found a place to start his doctor’s practice. He sounded so happy until he asked me carefully if I’ll come home soon. I said I don’t know. I’m 23 now. People are settling down and I think he wants to settle down too. Time has passed so quickly, it’s scary. I don’t feel like I made much progress at all.  
_

_3) I’m 24. It’s raining and I have no idea where the hell I am. I’m cold. I don’t belong here._

_4) ~~I want to go home. I am exhausted of traveling. I want to go home but I’m not sure what I’ll find there. Today I watched a couple arguing about which set of plates to buy and it occurred to me that this is one of the things I never got to do. Leorio’s living on his own for quite a while now, he probably has all the plates he needs. What if they’re ugly? What if I need to make up a stupid reason to smash them so that we need to buy new ones? What if there’s no ‘we‘ anymore and he doesn’t care about my opinion on his plates? That’s it, I’m going crazy. Three and a half years. Three and a half years of visiting the most breath taking landscapes and cities that this world has to offer and I get homesick over plates~~. I’m going home._

* * *

 

The waiting room in Leorio’s doctor’s office has a lot of framed photographies. They change every few months and eventually one of his patients’ parents asks him who makes them. She runs a gallery. Leorio doesn’t quite know what she wants from him, but takes her out for coffee in his lunchbreak to listen to her rambling about the pictures. She uses too many cryptic terms and smokes too much. (She smokes inconsiderately; the cold cigarette stench lingers on her son too. He hates when people do that.) 

What Leorio understands of this conversation is that Kurapika is rapidly improving. So much that the lady would like to display some of the works in her gallery. There’s also something about focus and increasing intimacy and wanderlust… it makes Leorio a little bit jealous that she seems to understand something about Kurapika that he doesn’t. All he can add to the conversation is a “my fiancé makes them“ and “I’ll ask him when he comes home from his travels“.

The _when_ s taste like _if_ s these days.

He takes and extra long walk with Callie that afternoon and when they come home, there is a mail waiting for him with more pictures. Half of them are high quality photographies of fancy dinner plates, which convince Leorio even more that he really doesn’t get art. The rest is a mix of railway tracks, bridges and airships, of people waiting on bus stops, and several pictures of a madly grinning little girl that is covered in sparrows. Leorio’s heart almost stops when he opens the last one.

Blond hair spills softly over a shoulder whose curve is as familiar to Leorio as his own body and for a moment he gets dizzy as he tries to find the Kurapika he knew in this person’s frame, tries to dismantle the transformation in smaller parts that are easier to digest. His skin has acquired a healthier tone; freckles spread over his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose like the cinammon Kurapika likes to sprinkle over his coffee, and the scars on his torso that were once red and angry have faded to white rivers. He’s not wearing a shirt, so Leorio gets to count them all. It’s odd to see Kurapika so exposed and calm at the same time, he who loved to treat his body like a secret that gets revealed to only a few chosen ones.

Leorio reaches out carefully, pressing his finger on the part of the screen that displays Kurapika’s right arm, which ends in a stump below the shoulder. He could have easily covered it up, all he had to do was let his hair fall down over the right side of his face (it got _so_ long and Leorio’s chest aches with the old protective longing because who is there to help Kurapika wash his hair? Who is there to assist Kurapika with anything that requires more than just one arm?). But he didn’t. He’s displaying his loss for Leorio to see and he’s _smiling_ into the camera in a way that seems both cocky and fond. When Leorio blinks, the smile seem to shift between those two attitudes. 

He blinks a lot.

Tears well up in his eyes as he inhales sharply. 

Leorio feels like drinking. (He can’t. He has surgery to perform tomorrow.) He feels like calling Kurapika but he’s not sure if he can keep his voice steady or if he might end up begging his fiancé to come home, which would be a very unfair thing to do.

Callie senses his turmoil and trots over to shove her wet snout against his ear. She licks his cheek. Leorio never knows if she’s really trying to provide comfort or if she just likes the taste of salt, but after a minute of rough canine affection he feels a little less miserable. He’s bad with words and sends Kurapika just a quick reassurance that he received the pictures and that he looks _absolutely stunning dear god_ , before he crawls into bed.

* * *

 

A few members of Ging Freecss’ expedition team caught the Zobae Disease; Leorio caught a disease just as destructive. He caught guilt. It caused him to remember the same images over and over again, like watching a scratched DVD that jumps from scene to scene. But the colors are all wrong. Too intense.

When he killed the prince of Kakin, the blood dripping from his hands had been the bright red of strawberry juice. When he carried Kurapika to safety, the Kurta robes shone in the familiar blue and gold, a severe contrast to the dark swelling spreading on his mangled right arm. When Cheadle put her hand on his shoulder and asked him to give them permission for the surgery, the white of the bed sheets burned his eyes and rendered him snow-blind. 

(”Can’t we just wake him up?”, he said. “If he was awake, he could heal himself.” “Even if we did, he’d be in too much pain to stay conscious for long, much less use his Nen. And he’s been bleeding into his muscle tissue for too long already, this is nothing a quick enhancement technique can fix. If we wait any longer, he might not survive despite the surgery,” Cheadle replied and Leorio _knew_ this, but he still needed to hear that there was only one possible answer.)

Once he was done remembering, he started again. Rinse and repeat.

Everything hurt a little, especially looking at Kurapika, looking at the space where once an arm has been and secretly hoping that Kurapika would finally blame him for this loss. He _deserved_ this blame. 

Kurapika disagreed.

* * *

 

“Wow, you look wasted“ is the first thing Knuckle says as he opens the door to his and Shoot’s spacey apartment to welcome Leorio. That rewards him a quiet snicker from the breakfast table where Shoots lanky form is partially hidden by a huge newspaper floating in front of his face. Two of his hands are busy with holding it up and turning the pages, the third pets a small dog on his lap and the fourth one - the one that is attached to his body - stirs a cereal bowl.

“You’re so polite this morning.“ Shoot sighs between spoons of oatmeal. “Don’t worry, Leorio, he said the exact same thing to me.“

“Yeah, well, you’re not s’posed to be up this early.“

“You try to sleep with a paw in your face. Not to mention that Calendula tried to sit on me.“ Knuckle looks up and his small eyes fix on Leorio. “You don’t let her sleep in your bed, do you?“

“Noooo, of course not! Just when there are fireworks or thunderstorms - maybe she was startled by something.” He also let her sleep in his bed when he is lonely, but Leorio has no intention of sharing this information. The rustling of the newspaper sounds like an accusation and so he coughs awkwardly. “I hope looking after her wasn’t too much trouble?“

Knuckle face brightens up. “Not at all! We love to have her back around. How did the surgery go?“

“Good. It was a hassle to find all the metastases and remove them, but not as much of a hassle as convincing the father to let me operate in the first place. But the kid handled it very well.“ By now, Leorio is used to the play act that comes with being a Nen physician: the booking of surgery rooms that aren’t actually needed, the learning and rehearsing of new, non-invasive surgery techniques that will be explained to the parents in great detail without any intention of performing them and - Leorio’s favorite part - chatting and goofing around with his little patients to fill the time that a nenless treatment would have taken. He feels slightly bad for deceiving the parents, but this is common practice at the hospitals that were funded by the Hunter Association - the joy over the amount of children who were spared chemo therapy outweighed the nights in which guilt made it hard to sleep.

“You know, if you ever need a vacation, we could-“

“-we could _find someone_ who looks after Callie for you,“ Shoot interrupts with a slight edge to his voice that is barely detectable because he’s such a quiet guy, but Knuckle flinches. “That’s what I was gonna say!“

“No, you weren’t. You know we don’t have the space to keep her around for long. Plus, Basil keeps on bullying her.“

Leorio chuckles “It’s okay, I travel enough for work purposes, I am perfectly content spending my vacations in town.“

The UMA hunters exchange a glance. The room fills with silence. _They can’t possibly know,_ Leorio thinks as his chest becomes tight in anticipation of words he doesn’t want to hear, not from his friends, not even from himself. _Maybe you should stop waiting for him to come home any day,_ they might say. And he’s not ready for that.

The spell of the moment is broken as Shoot puts down the newspaper and shoos the little black pug from his lap. “I’ll get your dog,“ he says and then nothing matters anymore but the clicking on the wooden floor as a mass of dogs storm out of their playroom - Callie’s by his side in a blink, standing up on her hindlegs and bearing down her heavy paws on Leorio’s shoulder, snuffling and licking, smearing his glasses with her wet nose. He loves his big, fluffy samoyed baby, he loves to give her love. Often, he’s so full of it that he threatens to spill over but Callie is always there to accept it, always where his hands can reach. As long as he has her, things will be fine.

He walks her home, and takes a little detour through the park. The park means being met with friendlier faces and Leorio lets Callie off the leash for a while - she never strays far from him. (In this she is very different from the people he loves.) He watches her jump and try to catch a june bug in flight, ridiculous as only a dog can be and pretends not to notice all the young, happy couples that get drawn out by the beautiful weather, parading on the park’s walkways with their baby strollers, showing off their perfectly chubby babies. He pretends not to be jealous, like he doesn’t yearn for the joy that tiny hands can bring. Working with children every day made him aware of how much he wants to have a family. 

He hasn’t told Kurapika yet. The miles between them leave too much room for misunderstandings, so he doesn’t dare.

Leorio snaps out of his daze. Callie is gone. He whistles sharply, which gets him some _human_ attention, but his fuzzy companion appears nowhere in sight. Then he hears her bark. 

Leorio is horrified to find her wrestling with a person. That is to say, it’s the person that does all the wrestling - what Leorio can make out of them is a mess of flailing arms and legs - while Callie has them pinned on the ground, wagging her tail eagerly and jerking her head back as if she’s pulling on something. Uneasiness rolls through Leorio and settles heavy in his stomach. Callie is a giant dog and people don’t understand that she means no harm.

He calls out for her. A second later, multiple things happen at once: Leorio can hear something snap; the person underneath Callie goes limp and Callie heaps back, returns to Leorio in a series of eager jumps. He has no eyes for the item in her snout, he is too busy staring at what he thinks is a dead body - until the stranger scrambles back to their feet.

They have Kurapika’s face, flushed pink with a mixture of anger and embarrassment, they have hair the exact shade of blond that Kurapika has, perched high on their heard in a messy bun. They even stride like Kurapika - smooth and proud - but the way their arms move reminds Leorio that this can’t possibly be Kurapika. Because. _Arms_. Plural.

Leorio thinks _and here I thought I was past seeing ghosts_ and bursts into nervous laughter. This must be a hallucination. _A tactile hallucination_ , he reasons, as a fist connects with his arm in a mock-punch, _probably from exhaustion._ Or a brain tumor. An aneurysm is also likely: Pietro died from an aneurysm and wouldn’t it be just the cruelest joke if Leorio died from the same thing, after he achieved to honor his friend?

“You ass, don’t just stand there laughing while your hell beast of a dog eats my ring,“ the hallucination says. They draw in their breath noisily and hazel eyes widen with sudden realization. A Kurtan curse slips from their tongue, followed by a quiet: “I can explain. Please don’t freak out.“

The impulse to freak out arises when the arm that is not supposed to be there turns sheer and vanishes. “You weren’t meant to find out like this,“ the person in the shape of Kurapika says and their voice sounds fearful and vulnerable.

Leorio notices the chafed skin around their neck, where a chain would be worn. Or a piece of string. He turns his attention back to Callie who wags her tail, waiting to be acknowledged and praised. Black string hangs from her teeth.

“Callie, spit that _out_.“

She whines and lowers her snout, before she carefully drops the item on the gravel. It’s a honey colored wooden ring, gleaming with polish and dog saliva.

“Disgusting,“ Kurapika says.

“You’re a conjurer,“ Leorio says as he gets a hold of Kurapika. He is careful not to touch the irritated skin of the neck as he cups a cheek that fits perfectly against his palm. Blond brows rise. Leorio anticipates the sass and oh, how he receives it. 

“I am aware.“

There’s nothing wrong with his head, he’s just _slow_ and stupid and the world turns into a blurry mess as his eyes water. Kurapika laughs quietly and dabs away the tears, his actions more tender than Leorio remembers him to be. That’s how he knows this is real: because Kurapika is so much more than the ghost of his memory.


End file.
